The Principles of Newspeak (1949) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#11

Post by quartesixte » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

anonymousiam wrote: post #7

Rochus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orwell was a leftist, but also opposed totalitarian societies. "1984" was a dystopia to expose such totalitarian societies. Unfortunately, much of what he described as a horror scenario in "1984" is already reality today, without people being bothered by it anymore.

How do you define 'leftist'? Orwell also wrote Animal Farm, which is critical of communism.

Orwell was definitely left/labour leaning in his later years and supported democratic socialism.

As a younger man he was very much a Marxist revolutionary, but getting shot through the jaws in Spain and then subsequently witnessing the totalitarianism of Stalin quickly changed his mind. Animal Farm is a criticism of Stalinism in particular.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#12

Post by spijdar » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

anonymousiam wrote: post #7

Rochus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orwell was a leftist, but also opposed totalitarian societies. "1984" was a dystopia to expose such totalitarian societies. Unfortunately, much of what he described as a horror scenario in "1984" is already reality today, without people being bothered by it anymore.

How do you define 'leftist'? Orwell also wrote Animal Farm, which is critical of communism.

Orwell disliked Communism with a capital C, probably influenced by his participation in the Spanish civil war fighting alongside the Soviet Russians, but his allegiance was clearly to very leftist socialist causes, leaning towards the anarchist side of leftism.

He was also a pretty intelligent guy, and didn't blindly subscribe to partisan politics. More than anything, he disliked authoritarianism.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#13

Post by Gimpei » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

anonymousiam wrote: post #7

Rochus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orwell was a leftist, but also opposed totalitarian societies. "1984" was a dystopia to expose such totalitarian societies. Unfortunately, much of what he described as a horror scenario in "1984" is already reality today, without people being bothered by it anymore.

How do you define 'leftist'? Orwell also wrote Animal Farm, which is critical of communism.

I think Animal Farm provides a nice answer to that. In my reading of the text, the problem was not necessarily with the revolution, it was the fact that the revolution was perverted and in the end the pigs (communist cadre) simply replaced the bourgeoisie (farmers) preserving the system. Orwell was a socialist, believing in large scale redistribution, government involvement in the economy, etc. He just thought this be done in a democratic fashion and actually benefit the working classes. He looked at the Soviet Union and saw it as a totalitarian nightmare that didn't live up to its ideals.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#14

Post by krapp » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

anonymousiam wrote: post #7

Rochus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orwell was a leftist, but also opposed totalitarian societies. "1984" was a dystopia to expose such totalitarian societies. Unfortunately, much of what he described as a horror scenario in "1984" is already reality today, without people being bothered by it anymore.

How do you define 'leftist'? Orwell also wrote Animal Farm, which is critical of communism.

Orwell was a socialist, and he supported democratic socialism, but he vehemently opposed (and wrote Animal Farm as a mocking satire of) totalitarian Soviet communism[0], which he didn't consider to be socialist at all.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell#Politics

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#15

Post by civilized » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

Newspeak's goal of a complete regularization of English, and the elimination of all redundant forms, is actually an interesting idea IMO. Business jargon often moves in this direction, e.g. "learnings" instead of "lessons". And it's not always a horrible dystopian idea - Chinese has standardized over time and become more accessible to the masses with each iteration.

EDIT: I apologize for my doubleplusungood thoughtcrime. Oldspeak good! Newspeak bad! Oldspeak good! Newspeak bad!!!

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#16

Post by JKCalhoun » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

civilized wrote: post #15

Newspeak's goal of a complete regularization of English, and the elimination of all redundant forms, is actually an interesting idea IMO. Business jargon often moves in this direction, e.g. "learnings" instead of "lessons". And it's not always a horrible dystopian idea - Chinese has standardized over time and become more accessible to the masses with each iteration. EDIT: I apologize for my doubleplusungood thoughtcr…

Orwell believed if language is pared down, so too are thoughts.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#17

Post by JKCalhoun » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

quartesixte wrote: post #8

jp57 wrote: post #2

[flagged]

1984 and The Giver (both featuring dystopian societies with strict rules on language usage) has left me with a distinct distaste for the constant skirmishing over terminology currently active in our current “culture war”. It frustrates me to no end that English teachers, while assigning both books with high frequency, completely miss the language control part of both novels and focus instead on the other things. It f…

I read "1984" in high school and the language control was very much a part of the lesson.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#18

Post by gotoeleven » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

"The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible"

I'm genuinely curious do the woke brigades of twitter not have the self awareness to recognize what they're doing? Or do they just not care? Would they be happy with a language designed to make 'harmful' thinking impossible?

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#19

Post by nonfamous » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

anonymousiam wrote: post #7

Rochus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orwell was a leftist, but also opposed totalitarian societies. "1984" was a dystopia to expose such totalitarian societies. Unfortunately, much of what he described as a horror scenario in "1984" is already reality today, without people being bothered by it anymore.

How do you define 'leftist'? Orwell also wrote Animal Farm, which is critical of communism.

The fact that “leftist” is today invoked in relation to communism is an excellent example of Newspeak deployed in the actual world.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#20

Post by civilized » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #16

civilized wrote: post #15

Newspeak's goal of a complete regularization of English, and the elimination of all redundant forms, is actually an interesting idea IMO. Business jargon often moves in this direction, e.g. "learnings" instead of "lessons". And it's not always a horrible dystopian idea - Chinese has standardized over time and become more accessible to the masses with each iteration. EDIT: I apologize for my doubleplusungood thoughtcr…

Orwell believed if language is pared down, so too are thoughts.

Well I hope it's not a thoughtcrime to disagree with Orwell slightly, if he actually thought that this is universally true. Language often undergoes simplification and standardization and it isn't always bad.